


Diplomacy

by Tammany



Series: The Sussex Downs [24]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Detante, Gen, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 20:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Continuation of "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes." Beelzebub. Aziraphale. Crowley.





	Diplomacy

The sun is beautiful, Aziraphale thought, as he lay in the inflatable lounger in the pool, enjoying the frivolous pleasure of living like a human on eternal vacation. He has remembered to miracle his fair skin UV-proof—a miracle that wears off if he’s not careful, leaving him with sunburns he has to further miracle away. His lovely, loose pastel tartan swimming trunks are soaked, his bottom cheerfully dunked in the cool water. He’s wearing a pair of sunglasses Crowley insists are utterly ridiculous. “If Janis Joplin’s glasses mated with the rainbow, that would be their offspring, Angel.”

He’d had to look up Joplin. Then he’d bounced down YouTube, frowning, and reviewing the history of music since the Swing Era. Along the way he’d discovered that the Velvet Underground definitely was not bebop, and that he liked bebop quite a bit better.

Joplin, however, he was giving a probationary hold. He’d learned over the centuries that many times he had to adjust to quality… He was a Timeless Immortal and change didn’t sit well with him at first. But he could learn.

And what a tragedy if he couldn’t, he thought. Imagine being incapable of appreciating Sondheim… Shocking!

He had a cold lemonade in one hand, and a waterproof Kindle in the other, because even if the Kindle failed to survive a dunking, the actual ebook would endure. It was one of the things he had come to appreciate about ebooks: they could survive things paper books could not. Of course, the reverse was true. Aziraphale was not yet convinced that ebooks would survive a technological dark age.

Not that he was worrying about that at the moment.

He was trying, instead, to not-worry about a job-lot of entirely different things.

“I believe I encountered your associate, Beelzebub,” Mycroft Holmes had said that morning, coming in from a walk.

Aziraphale’s stomach had clenched, worse than if he’d eaten a bad oyster. “Indeed?” he’d said, trying to look unconcerned.

“Indeed,” Mycroft had studied him, soberly. “I believe you can see her if you walk out to the terrace rail.”

“No, no. It’s a free beach,” Aziraphale had said, attempting a level of casual confidence he did not feel. But as soon as Mycroft had continued on his way he’d scurried to the terrace, slinking along the walls and hedges, looking for a vantage that would allow him to see without being seen. He’d finally found one, if he didn’t mind being squashed between a very thorny bougainvillea and a concrete support pier. He peeked down to the shoreline.

She looked small and oddly valiant. Her faded red sash fluttered in the wind, like a lost battalion’s only banner. He could see the pipecleaner legs of her fly hat quivering in the wind.

“It’s not fair,” he had grumbled to himself. “She’s not supposed to make me feel sorry for her. I’ve already got one demon to worry about.”

He had crept back along the perimeter of the terrace, and darted into the house. He’d originally brewed himself a cuppa, because “England,” and “gentleman Angel (retd.)” and “tea got us through the Blitz.” Then he’d tossed it down the sink and made a big mug of cocoa. But that had been too sweet, and his worry had stripped all the joy out of it, and in the end he’d dumped that, too, and got out the big bottle of all-purpose blended Scotch you could pick up cheap at the local and serve even to people you didn’t like or want to stay around, because he was clearly in no mood for the good stuff.

“What’s wrong, Angel?” Crowley had asked later, coming in from gadding about the tiny nearby town for hours…hours! What that man found to gad over in Lower Whimberry Hollow he could not imagine. It was hardly Soho, after all. It wasn’t even Swindon.

“Beelzebub,” Aziraphale snapped. “On OUR beach.”

Aziraphale had just lifted his chin and gazed through his dark glasses out toward the plate glass windows overlooking the shore. “Really? Now?”

“Of course not now. I’d say so if it was right now. No—this morning, after you left. Mycroft saw her.”

Crowley cocked his head. “Er…doing anything? In particular?”

“Apparently wearing sand shoes and getting her feet soaked. I don’t know. She’s a Prince of Hell, Crowley. She could be doing anything.”

“Yeah. But she didn’t come with flights of angels and cherubs flittering around,” Crowley pointed out. “Not like that prick Gabriel. You could have gone out and asked her in for a cuppa.”

“I was in no mood to invite her in, much less pour her a cuppa,” Aziraphale snapped back. “She’s a _demon_, Crowley. A _Prince of Hell._ And she was going to put you to death, if you’ll remember.”

“Yeah. But at least _she _gave me a trial,” Crowley said. “Not like that prick, Gabriel.” He glowered, and scowled. “The Archangel Fucking Gabriel,” he said, mocking, clearly miffed. “If you invite him in, don’t even waste the blended scotch. There’s a bottle of McHinnery’s in the stairwell with the cleaning fluid and the turpentine. You can serve him that.”

“I’ll keep it in mind if he comes back,” Aziraphale said, mildly sarky.

But he’d been worried about it ever since.

A Prince of Hell. Beelzebub. Prince of Hell. Who, yes, had been willing to give Crowley an actual trial. And found him guilty of a crime he had, in fact, actually committed. But—Holy Water! His demon would have dissolved beyond even recorporation, for Goodness Sake!

And she had been on their beach.

An inflated beach ball drifted along the surface of the pool and bumped into Aziraphale’s toe. He kicked it sullenly away.

It drifted back.

He kicked it again.

Back again, like the cat in the song.

He scowled and disappeared it.

Frivolous use of miracles, his inner conscience grumbled.

Screw that, he snapped back, his inner curmudgeon being quite capable of holding its own against the silent knowledge of Good and Evil. I don’t want her here. I don’t trust her.

He paddled the lounger to the edge of the pool, rose, and waded out, scowling.

He went to the rail of the terrace, feeling the wind wicking the water in his swim trunks, chilling his “effort,” as some Celestials like to refer to the genitalia they miracle on to their originally neuter bodies.

He peeked down on the shore.

Yes, damn it. There she was. Her eyes met his almost instantly, as his met hers.

Her chin lifted. As though she was too proud to risk him thinking she wasn’t, well—proud as a Prince of Hell. As though she didn’t want him to suspect in any way that she might be small, and cold, and Fallen, and confused, with a God who stayed hidden and who double-dealt scripture and hid spare prophecies up her sleeve like a card sharp out to diddle the universe itself.

Like Crowley.

She looked so small in that rather adorable jacket, with the delicate, feminine flutter of ribbons at her neck, held together with the fancy brooch. And that fly. Ridiculous. But—if you must be a demon and the Lord of Flies, you might as well have a sense of humor about it, after all—and that fly screamed humor. Or stupidity so deep and entrenched as to blind the wearer from any recognition the hat was an entire two-hour-with-intermission, one-woman stand-up comedy act in its own right.

In a blink he magicked himself down to the shore. He stood in front of her, trying not to bristle and snap. She stood right back, clearly trying to do the same.

After a time he said, “Nice hat.”

She considered. Straight-faced she said, “Nice swim trunks.”

He smiled. They were ridiculous—but they were his kind of ridiculous. “I’m fond of them,” he said, unaware of the sweetness of his expression.

“The eyes are what got me about the hat,” she said. “Couldn’t walk away after I noticed them.”

They studied each other.

“You’d better not be planning trouble for us,” he said, warily.

“Or likewise—oh Guardian of Earth,” she said, voice dry. Only then did he realized there wasn’t a fly circling her head, or an extended s or z buzzing in her speech pattern.

“It’s been a strange time,” he said. “It feels like she’s making all of us reassess our functions.”

She nodded. “What’s written—it doesn’t fit. Quite. Anymore.”

“No,” he admitted. “And to think of the hours I spent trying to do Her will.”

“Likewise.” Then she smiled, and said, with a dimple showing, “I mean, likewizzzzzzzzzzze.”

He laughed in surprised delight. “My word! I mean—my word.” He considered her. “Would you like to come up to the house? It’s warded against ill-will. I couldn’t ward it against demons.” He gave a gentle giggle, and added. “Well—Crowley. I’d hardly want to ward it against Crowley. The thing is, you’re safe. Ish. I could make you a cuppa. Or offer you some scotch. Not even the cheap, blended scotch, much less the scotch under the stair with the cleaning fluid and the turpentine. And the pool is heated. And I could miracle you up a swimming suit.”

She smiled, then—the smile of a shy, reserved girl. “I think I’ll miracle my own, if you don’t mind.” She shrugged and made a face. “I could deal with the tartan. But…pastel?” She shuddered. “So…”

“By all means.” He offered her his elbow, manners classic and elegant.

She tucked her hand into the curve, and he escorted her up the stairs, across the terrace, and into the house, where Crowley found them hours later wrapped in towels and giggling over mugs of mulled wine.

“She has the most outrageous stories about you back in the day,” Aziraphale said to Crowley, who surrendered in despair, recognizing the beginning of a beautiful friendship when he saw one.


End file.
